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WGA East Will Represent Sharp Entertainment Reality Writers

by Team TVWriter™ Press Service

Hey, this is a Big Deal even if it is a press release:

Almost three months after 150 writers and producers from Sharp Entertainment filed for a National Labor Relations Board election to join the WGA East, they’ve become union members. Ballots for an election held last month were counted February 3, the guild said today. The now-members work or recently worked as staffers on Sharp’s Doomsday Preppers, Man Vs. Food, and other series.

“We are very pleased that the writer-producers at Sharp have voted to become part of the WGAE,” said Lowell Peterson, executive director of the WGA East, in a statement today. “We anticipate entering a collective bargaining agreement with Sharp that includes the provisions we have won for writer-producers employed by other nonfiction TV production companies, he added. The announcement comes as the WGA enters its second week of talks with producers on a new labor deal.

The move by staff on Sharp, which also produces Property Wars and Man Vs. Food, marks the latest gain in WGA East’s continuing efforts to unionize nonfiction shows and production companies. In June last year, NBCU’s Peacock Productions freelancers held a unionization vote sparking a lengthy election dispute.